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Sands of Destruction Review

Story:
Morte sees no rhyme or reason to her world, a cruel place where beastmen rule over humans. Ripped apart by her past, she plans on destroying everything around her. At least, that was the plan before she bumped into Kyrie and ended up with his complaining voice tagging along. Then a strangely powerful bear named Toppy joins in following her around and suddenly her journey of destruction starts taking a few detours. But though her companions want nothing to do with such a horrible goal, Morte continues her journey to unlock the secrets of the Destruct Code she poses, regardless of the forces seeking her own destruction.

Violence:
Fighting is pretty frequent in this series, but it’s not graphic in any way. We never see any vast amounts of blood. In fact, the most blood in this show is a few paper cuts. That’s about it. There’s a lot more comic violence than actual violence, such as characters being thrown or smacked.

Language:
This series did very well for itself until the last few episodes. The b-word was used once. Still, for a show that doesn’t seem to be for very young viewers (Morte’s past is quite sad), only one curse in the entire series is pretty good.

Nudity:
Again this show is surprising in that it really has no nudity in it. It has many opportunities, but it never takes them. Morte wears a miniskirt, but we never see farther up than we should. In fact, there really isn’t any fanservice at all in this show.

Theology/Mythology:
There is an idea that is mentioned a few times, mainly in question form, that God created the world with both men and beastmen. Other than this comment in passing, God isn’t really talked about. The Destruct Code is revealed to have been around since the world began, but no creating powers are attached to it and it is never thought of as a god. It should be noted though that at the beginning of the show a group of beastmen try to sacrifice a human to their “god” in the sand sea. It’s not a god, however, just some monster creature.

Personal Impression:
This series is possibly the most vanilla show around. Honestly. Yet for all that, it’s certainly not a bad show. It’s just like a vanilla wafer. It’s good on its own, but often you’re left wanting something with a bit more… well, more (horrid movie quote alert).
On topic however, the background music is decent (the opener is quite well done indeed). And the animation is good enough for a, well, vanilla show. Even the characters fall to typical stereotypes. There’s the angry and short tempered female, the wimpy guy (although he actually stays in characters despite danger and continues to be a wimp most of the story instead of becoming a hero overnight), and a mascot character that kicks butt. …Ok, so maybe they aren’t quite so typical, but it’s handled in a pretty predictable fashion. In any case, only the very end of the series holds some surprising answers and serious development of the characters, where as the rest of the show falls into a “trouble of the day” deal where all is resolved at the end of the episode. Even so, this show is quite clean and fun. Toppy is hilarious, as is Kyrie once one gets used to him. At the very least it’s a good, though short, break from more serious fare. And who doesn’t want to see a teddy bear defeat a giant horseman? …Anyone?

About inrosegalaxy

Raised on everything from Moby Dick to the Star Wars X-Wing books from a young age, it came as no surprise to anyone who knew me that I’d become a literature graduate and avid writer. But my love of a good story wasn’t restricted to the written word in my early years. Star Trek, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and badly dubbed Godzilla flicks helped shape my love of science fiction on screen as well.
I wrote my first story while in the second grade. It was a horrifying tale about murdering a fairy-eating dog via a slice of pizza (in my defense, my only exposure to pizza was in the cafeteria and I swear you could legitimately kill someone with those things). I was a special snowflake.
Today I write science fiction, fairy tales, Gothic epistolaries, fantasy and anything else that pops into my bizarre and twisted mind. I write new articles for my blog every Tuesday and Thursday. And if you happen to fancy Japanese animation, I also run an anime review blog, RRAR, which updates every Monday.